Why Is True Reality Also Non-Form?

Original Text: World-Honored One. If again there are people who, upon hearing this sutra, attain pure faith, then the true suchness is born. You should know that such people accomplish the foremost rare and precious merit. World-Honored One. This true suchness is precisely non-appearance. Therefore, the Tathagata says it is named true suchness.

Explanation: Subhuti said: World-Honored One, if there are others who, after hearing this sutra, give rise to exceedingly pure faith, they will discern what is the true appearance and what is the illusory false appearance. Then you should know that this person accomplishes the foremost rare and precious merit. World-Honored One, this so-called true suchness is also not the true reality; it too is an illusory false appearance. Therefore, the Tathagata says it is provisionally named true suchness.

Clearly, this so-called true suchness is the wisdom cognition born from the pure faith of those who hear the sutra; it is the wisdom of experiential realization. The wisdom that realizes true suchness is not true suchness itself. The wisdom of true suchness itself is neither born nor extinguished, neither increasing nor decreasing, unchanging, whereas the wisdom that discerns true suchness is subject to birth, extinction, increase, and decrease; therefore, it is not true suchness, not the inherently existent true appearance. It is provisionally named true suchness; it should be called the wisdom of true suchness, the wisdom born from realizing true suchness.

Moreover, the inherently existent true suchness is without form or appearance, devoid of any mundane dharmic appearances, devoid of any appearances of the six dust realms (objects of the senses). It has always revealed itself as without appearance. Therefore, it is also non-appearance. This adamantine mind of non-appearance is also given the name true suchness, using this name to reveal the true reality of the adamantine mind, its nature of being neither born nor extinguished, enabling sentient beings to recognize and extol it.

After hearing this Diamond Sutra, to be able to possess pure faith—faith pure in this sutra, faith pure in the adamantine mind—and furthermore to realize the adamantine mind, is indeed to accomplish the foremost rare and precious merit; it is truly rare and difficult to attain. The wholesome roots of such a person are extremely profound. The appearance of realizing the adamantine mind is also eliminated; the appearance of the wisdom of true suchness arising is eliminated. Then, regarding the practice and realization of the Buddha Dharma, one does not grasp it as real, does not give rise to arrogance, dispels all appearances, and the mind becomes empty, pure, and tranquil. Thus, one will swiftly reach the other shore of nirvana.